Nick McKim (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

The fact remains that, no matter how uncomfortable it is for the so-called left of the Labor Party, our prime minister was the first global leader to come out and say that he supported an illegal, unprovoked attack on Iran that, not long after he said it, resulted in over 150 schoolchildren dying under a barrage of missiles launched by the United States and Israel in an unprovoked, illegal attack on the people of Iran.

I say to the Prime Minister: how is your support for the war going now? We've got thousands of people dead and hundreds of thousands of people displaced from their homes or injured. We've got a black swan event that is ruining economies around the world, including here in Australia. We're seeing interest rates climb. We're seeing fuel shortages add to supply pressures through our economy, driving up the price of things like food and fertiliser, and we ain't seen nothing yet. How is your war going now, Mr Albanese? How's the war that you were the first global leader to support going now?

I will tell you how it is going. It's not going well. It's definitely not going well for the people in Iran, who are being brutalised and slaughtered in their droves. It's not going well for the people in southern Lebanon, who are being illegally attacked by Israel and having their lands illegally occupied and their homes destroyed in war crimes by Israel supported by the United States and supported by the Labor Party here in Australia. How do you think it's all going now? I'll tell you how it's going. It's not going well, and the fact that it's not going well was entirely predictable when the Prime Minister became the first global leader out to make it very clear to President Trump and Mr Netanyahu that he thought their illegal war was a great idea.

I'll tell you what we need in this place. We need the war parties to wake up to themselves. We need the Labor Party, the Liberals and One Nation to wake up to themselves and stop supporting this illegal war. Stop supporting the slaughter of thousands of innocent people just because they happen to live in Iran or they happen to live in Lebanon. That's what this country needs and that's what the world needs, but we're not going to get it because we are effectively a vassal state to the United States. We are locked in by the military industrial complex, by the security industrial complex and by the Five Eyes arrangements. We are locked in to backing in the United States and backing in Israel no matter their war crimes, no matter the geopolitical stupidity of their actions and no matter the entirely predictable ramifications on the Australian economy of starting a war with Iran.

The new powers that this bill seeks to create will allow the ACCC to ensure businesses can work together to distribute products that are affected by the entirely predictable supply crisis caused by the illegal war in Iran that is perpetrated by the United States and Israel and supported by the Australian Labor Party here in Australia. Those products could include fuel, they could include fertiliser and they could include food. Those powers will allow the ACCC to ensure that those products, and potentially others, are distributed in a timely way to the places that most need them.

The Greens are not going to stand in the way of this bill. It ensures that people have access to essential goods and services in times of crisis. However, we do think the bill needs to have stronger safeguards in place to ensure that any exemptions from competition law that the ACCC grants to businesses are subject to parliamentary scrutiny. That's why we are preparing and will circulate an amendment that requires any class exemption that the ACCC makes to be made via a disallowable instrument. This will allow the parliament to ensure that the ACCC has granted exemptions that are strictly in the public interest and are sufficiently narrowly targeted to support businesses to resolve the particular crisis or the particular exceptional circumstances but are not so broad as to constitute an unnecessary relaxation of our competition laws. We will not allow a crisis to be used as an excuse to give free rein to big corporations to avoid their competition responsibilities.

I want to briefly refer to those provisions in the bill that allow civil penalties to be attached to the Oil Code of Conduct. The Oil Code of Conduct is a mandatory industry code that regulates the conduct of suppliers, distributors and retailers involved in the sale, supply or purchase of petrol. It is noteworthy and regrettable that, currently, the code does not contain penalties. We are supportive of penalties being added to the Oil Code of Conduct to ensure a better chance of compliance and a better chance of making sure that businesses involved in the fuel supply chain do the right thing.

I want to go back to the context before I conclude my remarks. The context of this bill is as follows. The US and Israel started an unprovoked and illegal war on Iran. That led to entirely predictable consequences—and not just the horrific consequences for the people of Iran and people in the region, who are being slaughtered in their droves and injured and displaced from their homes in countless millions. It has led to entirely predictable circumstances for the Australian economy.

To those who say Australia is not an active participant in the US and Israel's illegal war on Iran, I say, and the Greens say, think again. We have sent a spy plane. We have sent missiles. We have sent personnel into the war theatre. Labor's mealy-mouthed weasel words—that these are only being used in a defensive capacity—are deliberately designed to mislead Australians away from the truth.

The truth is that we are contributing to this war effort. Every single asset and any personnel we send into that war theatre, even if they are technically being used in a defensive capacity, are freeing up assets for the aggressors in this war, the United States and Israel, that can then be used in an offensive capacity. The intelligence being gathered by the spy plane that we have sent over there is undoubtedly being used to support offensive action against Iran. Australia is a direct contributor to the war on Iran. We are supporting the US and Israel in their offensive efforts against Iran. We are morally culpable for the slaughter of innocent people, the injuries to innocent people and the mass displacement of innocent people from their homes. We are morally culpable because we are directly contributing to those outcomes.

This war was supported from day one by the Prime Minister and the Australian Labor Party. We are direct contributors and supporters of the US and Israel in their illegal war, and the Australian people are now paying an economic price for this war—for Labor's support for this war. It is not as big a price as the people being slaughtered and displaced in Iran and Lebanon are paying. It is nevertheless an entirely predictable consequence of this war. So I say to the Labor Party you should rein in your warmongering instincts, you should think again before you jump when the US president tells you to jump and you should actually be leading Australia down a path where we are a truly independent middle power in the world that advocates peace and not war.